Debate Magazine

Killer Arguments Against LVT, Not (493)

Posted on the 01 June 2022 by Markwadsworth @Mark_Wadsworth

Under an LVT-supporting article in The Guardian:
acornishfarmer
average farm 213 acres ...worth £2M...
average income per acre £66 (2019 yr)...£12000
... you would bust family farming in UK for ever

Complete moron. He or she ignores how much (or little) LVT on farmland would be.
1. Size of farm - irrelevant
2. Current selling price of farmland - irrelevant.
3. Average income per acre - £66, that seems low to me, but I'll take their word for it. Of that, maybe £20/acre is average land rental value - the LVT would be a percentage of this. The rest is earned income and irrelevant to LVT.
4. Farmers (and their workers) would benefit from the same reductions in VAT* and National Insurance (those first as they are the most damaging taxes), so would at worst break even under LVT.
5. Tenant farmers - who pay on average a lot more than £20/acre seem to manage somehow. Long time LVT supporters and lifelong farmer Dr D Pickard owns some land and rents extra bits as and when he 'needs' them, i.e. if he can make a net profit after paying rent. If he can make a net profit after paying full rent, he can certainly make a net profit after paying LVT, which by definition would be less than the full rent.
* "But farmers and their workers don't have to charge VAT!" shout more morons. Directly or indirectly they very much do - the wheat they sell that end up in biscuits or alcohol are indirectly subject to VAT. They pay VAT directly on their personal expenditure. Or, if you look at tax incidence, these are borne directly and indirectly respectively. Not that it changes the maths much.


Back to Featured Articles on Logo Paperblog

Magazine